humidity and fluorescent lights failure

[notanengineer2]

When the humidity is high (and when isn't it in West Virginia?) my fluorescent lights fail to come on. They will try and will be on sort of, and after a long time they may actually work. This isn't a problem during the winter when the house is dry, or when the A/C is on.
Note: the lights have quick-start ballasts.
My question: is a component weak or is this the nature of humidity and fluorescent?
Thanks.

 

[IRstuff]

considering that fluorescent lights are vacuum tight, I'd find it hard to argue that humidity can affect the tube itself.

However, if you consider what a starter must do, which is to create a high voltage that's used to kickstart the ionization process within the tube, you can imagine that high humidity/moisture would cause leakage or discharging of high voltage nodes, thus lessening the voltage available for starting up a tube.

After a while, the power dissipated in the leakage path will have dried out the moisture and reduced the leakage, thus allowing the tube to start up.


TTFN